“Won’t Get Fooled Again”

Virtualization is an excellent technology to reduce server, power and cooling requirements and provides server management tools for high availability, backup and restore. When applied to UC systems though, I have to think back to 1971 and the famous Who song “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”

A UC system that needed numerous physical servers (call control, voice mail, unified messaging, unified communications, ACD, network management, etc.), each with a distinct management user interface, will still have the same number of servers (albeit virtual) and the same number of separate management interfaces.

So although there are some gains from virtualization, the fundamental complexity of a multi-server UC system is not addressed at all. Don’t get fooled by a PowerPoint presentation that shows a single box. What’s inside is the same old thing.

Or as Pete Townshend would say: “Meet the new boss/Same as the old boss.”